Steps on the Stairs
by Miiko Ashida
Summary: Ino's father knows she's home by her footsteps on the stairs. She comes home in a lot of different conditions, but she always does come home. He always forgives her, no matter how late she is or how drunk. Because Ino's a good girl, one of the few shinobi


Ino will stumble on the stairs and her father will hear it and come down. He won't say anything but he'll see the sort of unfocused way her eyes slide over his face and don't really register him, and he'll see the little patch of purple at the base of her neck.

He'll carry her up into his bedroom and tuck her into his bed and then he'll go downstairs to make something to wake her back into being Ino and curse himself for having a daughter. But of course he's glad she's there.

"I want a – a – " She'll stumble over the words, melodic voice sloppy and brow furrowing with difficulty of making her tongue move like it's supposed to, but she'll manage to get out, " – a vodka with lemon." She'll giggle and lean into his shoulder.

He won't say anything again, slipping a spoonful of a remedy he's gotten to be expert at making between her puffy, red-smeared lips. She'll choke and sputter because it's awful but then she'll wake up.

Her eyes will focus and she'll slump backwards, pull the covers over her head and mutter, "Sorry, Daddy."

He'll forgive her.

--

She'll stumble in, arms heavy with groceries, rambling loudly to no one about the indignity of a Jonin having to do her own errands. Like second nature, he'll come down and take as much as he can from her.

They'll sit at his table and drink tea, and he'll wonder why they still think of everything in this apartment as _his_ even though she's basically living here again, phenomenal salary supplemented by semi-regular A-class missions or not. In an offhanded way she'll rattle off her last assassination and he'll listen raptly. She'll get up to change into something clean (she stopped at the grocery store before even coming home, fresh off a mission), and he'll follow her.

Her clothes will be hung next to his in the dresser, and they're the only thing really distinctively belonging to either of them. She'll be standing there in just a bra and underwear and he'll watch from the doorway for any bruises or scrapes even though he promised to give up caring long ago.

Ino is a big girl who can take care of herself.

He'll tell himself this but every time he'll see little cuts, neatly stitched up, and he'll stop believing it again.

--

She'll bang up the stairs in heavy winter boots, hair stringy with wet snow, and her face red with cold. Her movements will be a little clumsy but she'll throw herself on him when he comes down to meet her.

Her arms and legs will wrap around him like the scarf around her neck, and she'll laugh and call him "Grandpa".

He'll nearly fall down at that point, but he's gotten so used to shock after shock by this point that all he'll say is, "Whose?"

And she won't tell him, then.

They'll have more tea upstairs and she'll take her coat off and you won't be able to tell by her stomach that it isn't just Ino anymore.

She'll buy a cot to sleep on and put it in the corner of his room. Sooner or later he assumes there will also be a crib. She'll look at baby catalogues delightedly and hum all the time and he'll wonder where his little girl went. He should have noticed her slipping out with Ino to go partying, but he didn't and then one of those times when Ino came back with a spoonful of nasty home remedy, the little girl didn't.

She'll finally tell him it was someone he doesn't know, a friend from a bar. Not Chouji. Not Shikamaru. Definitely not Sasuke, and she'll sound a little sad when she says this. A friend from the bar, she'll tell him.

He'll realize he'd better stop caring very soon.

--

It will be the last time she'll clatter into the base of his/their stairwell. She'll be pale. Her hair will be a mess and her clothes will reek.

He'll be prepared to scoop her up into a hug and ask how her mission was, except he'll realize (before he sees the mess on the floor and her clothes and hair and face, before he sees ho everything about her is pale and tattered) she's four days early.

Usually early is good, but sometimes it can be just as bad as late. Sometimes as bad as never.

She won't make it past the third step.

She'll stumble, uncross her arms from over her chest, and drip thick red all over the floor. Her eyes will be on him, and he'll just stand there, frozen (what is protocol for this?) but then his feet will move and his brain won't and he'll pull her off the wood floor. Speak nonsense to her about getting her to a hospital.

Why didn't she get _herself_ to one instead of coming here?

She's already too gone to be saved and he knows it. Her hands are very cold on his face. Her chest is seeping red into his shirt, the shirt he tears off and wraps corset-tight around her upper body, and presses hard down over the middle of her chest. Stop the bleeding. Call teammates for aid or send them for help – _that's_ procedure. Where the _fuck_ are her teammates? This never would have happened if she'd just stayed with Chouji and Shikamaru.

Her chest stops moving. She's still staring at him.

He kisses her forehead gently, cursing his panic that couldn't be helped – none of this could have been helped because it's the way a shinobi's life goes but he just doesn't see that – and cursing her teammates. He carries her up the stairs and lays her in bed, and then he goes out into the kitchen.

Walks past the cupboard that holds the hangover-remedy, to the phone.

Calls Asuma.

Goes back in and sits with his cold baby girl by their – _his_ – cold bed until the medics arrive.

He won't forgive her this time.


End file.
